Courtship Complications
by CobaltAC
Summary: A fill for the KinkMeme. An Asari C-Sec officer, born in a region of Thessia that is as tough and unyielding as Tuchanka, falls for a human recruit. Unfortunately, her quest in courting the fuzzy primate is met with many complications.
1. Chapter 1

**Here's another fill for the KinkMeme, this one being less smutty than my usual works.**

**The Prompt:**

_So I've been thinking that the alien races of mass effect seem to have a singular, all encompassing culture. Well, bullshit, I say. Earth has a shit-ton of cultures so why not, say, Thessia?_

On to the actual prompt:

_Here we have this tall asari commando/C-Sec/whatever, an Amazonian beauty who can kick ass and take names like nobody's business. And we also have this wiry, bookish human guy who spends most of his time with tech and books. The asari finds him to be a most captivating individual and almost immediately decides that she wants him warming her bed._

_So she decides to court him. Only thing is, this amazon comes from a region of Thessia that is tough and unforgiving, whose population has a distinct warrior culture. Her idea of courtship is to fight the poor bastard one on one. Naturally, she kicks his ass thoroughly but due to very poor communication, the guy thinks she hates his guts and is out to castrate him. All the while, she continues her pursuit to claim some fine human ass despite being bemused as to why the guy is avoiding her._

_OP requests lots of awkwardness and that the asari proceeds to try traditional ways to seduce her human with varying results. I also request that she succeeds and it ends with great, fluffy sexings._

**Hope you enjoy this!**

**-]|[-**

When Etherea first came to the Citadel to take a job at C-Sec, she had been on the receiving end of many stares from both aliens and asari. To both, she was an odd sight, for the aliens looked upon her to see an asari unlike any they had seen before and the asari saw a fellow sister who was not to be trifled with.

Etherea knew that she was tall for an asari, with a frame more muscular than most others of her species, and had a jaw too square to be considered attractive. She is the anti-thesis of what the other races, the turians and salarians, have come to expect from the asari, having large, calloused hands that were the product of nearly a century of hard labor. Even the way she moved was brusque, lacking the grace her race seemed to be renowned for.

Some of her alien co-workers, like Tyana, the turian forensics analyst, and Gallen, the salarian patrol officer, were surprised to hear that she was Thessian-born, the same as her much more sensual and elegant sisters. Surely, they thought, Etherea was born on some wasteland colony out in the Terminus. She responded by telling them of her home, a sparsely populated region that was known for being cold, mountainous and as unforgiving and unyielding as any Tuchankan wasteland or Palaven desert. It is located on the northern-most landmass of planet Thessia, less than a hundred miles from the edge of the icy, northern pole.

"A hard place breeds a hard people," She said, with a hint of pride.

To her surprise, she made friends quickly, Tyana and Gallen taking a liking -or in Gallen's case: becoming "intrigued"- to the towering asari who was built like a krogan. Her fellow asari, even the most feminine, also managed to come into her good graces.

That was two years ago. She had been green back then, as green as the Presidium grass, at least when it came to the Citadel and C-Sec. Now, she patrols the busiest ward, Zakera, next to seasoned turian officers and is treated like she is one of them, tough and reliable. Etherea would sometimes manage a small grin, knowing that she _earned_ the respect she commands through sweat and blood.

Today, she had heard their station is to take in "new meat", green recruits, and train them to be part of their system. Some of those recruits were said to be human, and Etherea found that she was curious.

"It's to shut the Alliance up," disregarded one turian male, with rust-colored plates and grey, sunken eyes. Bartallus was his name, she recalled.

She squinted at the grumbling turian, unsure of why he appears so agitated, but then remembered the little fight his kind had with the so-called "hairless primates".

An "incident" is what the turians called it, their attempt to downplay the only military defeat their species has had to suffer in over a thousand years and sooth their damaged, collective ego. The humans called it a "war", their attempt to exaggerate the ordeal and inflate their _own_ collective ego.

Etherea was not surprised at the actions of the upstart species but she is at those of the turians. Over a thousand years of being on the Council has apparently done little to dampen their damned pride.

She stuck her nose up at both of them.

On the day the new meat is brought in, Etherea cannot help but be distracted. She had rarely seen a human before and never this close.

_So many differences_, she thought, _yet they are all part of the same species!_

There were only a handful of humans among the group of recruits, yet the few that Etherea saw were so different from each other that it boggled her mind.

Pale skin, dark skin. Black head-growths, golden head-growths. Brown eyes and green eyes. Male and female.

Then she saw him, the human male that was said to be one of their new tech-experts. A "fixer" was what he called himself, the one who repairs weapons, equipment, data terminals. A "desk-worm" was what Bartallus called him.

The fibers that grew out of his scalp were colored a dark red, almost brown, and hung off of his head in a tangle of curls. There were fibers growing out of his face as well, his upper-lip, cheeks, chin and jaw having been darkened with their presence. A "beard" is what humans called it. With a thin face and a straight nose, he is of a wiry build, slighter than herself, weaker obviously, but looks like the type who could wiggle out of any grip that holds him. No taller than any salarian or turian, he stood shorter than her by a few inches, his eyes coming to her nose. When he looked up, his eyes were the ones that grabbed her attention. They were icy blue with a contradictory warmth to them, inviting even.

It took a sharp elbow from Tyana to shake her from her thoughts. Very much against her nature, Etherea jumped, but only slightly.

"Get a good enough look, Katha?" Tyana joked, her mandibles spread wide into a very knowing – and very throat-wringing - turian smile. Etherea's lips almost twitch into a smile at the nickname, "Katha". The name of a turian spirit of endurance, generally assumed to be feminine. It was fitting.

She turned back to find that the green recruits had been herded off to do Goddess knows what.

…And with them was the human with dark red hair and hypnotic blue eyes.

Etherea frowned.

"I'm going to assume you saw something you like," Tyana spoke again, mandibles still spread wide. The near-silent clicking noise coming from her throat is obviously subdued laughter.

"She must have," Gallen added, having been there the whole time. Etherea cursed his ghost-like movements. "That's the longest I've seen anyone hold her attention. I'm not sure I've seen her actually _stare_ at anyone before."

Etherea shot them both a pointed look that makes them go silent. Without another word, the asari returned to her paperwork.

But Gallen was right. She _had_ been staring, hadn't she? Shamelessly, too.

She tried to go maintain the productivity she had before the recruits came in but found her thoughts plagued by a human with curly, red hair.

It was only at the end of the day, when she was on a public shuttle home, that Etherea realized that she wanted the red-haired human in her bed.

**-]|[-**

Enamored. Charmed. Smitten. Captivated.

Gallen had told Etherea that each of those words were adequate in describing what the asari was ever since the recruits were brought in. Tyana had agreed, the turian companion's mandibles clicking as she attempted to stifle a giggle at the asari's predicament.

Etherea did not share her friends' opinions. She was not infatuated, nor was she love-struck like some doe-eyed maiden who viewed the galaxy through a pair of rose-tinted glasses.

No, Etherea had been vexed.

Ever since that human boy with red hair had come into her view, productivity had been dropped to unacceptable levels. For the past two weeks, Etherea found herself to be distracted for more often than usual. Normally, the distractions would be understandable, excusable things like a vid-call from family or excitement over a new episode of "Game of Queens".

However, these recent distractions were, frankly, of the pathetic sort. Her thoughts had been plagued by the human with curly hair. His name, as Etherea later discovered, was Charlie. She found it a very bad sign that she even knew that.

The asari would curse to herself in private on those occasions when her mind had wandered onto thoughts of a fuzzy, barely-evolved primate who happened to have a pleasing voice. By the Goddess, she was Etherea Nialle! She hailed not from the lush tropics that most other asari called home, but from a land of ice and rock! Her place of birth made her tougher than most krogan! When she wasn't working at her desk, Etherea was running down the fastest of salarian pick-pockets and wrestling turian rapist scum to the floor.

And yet, here she was, thinking about how pleasant it would be to wake up in the morning to a warm, fuzzy body next to her, to run her hands through those unruly curls until he woke up, to lose herself in those gorgeous blue eyes…

Etherea jolted back to reality, once again seated at her desk. Before her was a stack of paperwork, untouched. The asari dared a look at the clock and cursed under her breath when she saw that the paperwork was supposed to be completed and filed over an hour ago.

However subtle she attempted to be, Gallen noticed. The salarian seated across from her clicked his tongue in amusement, earning himself a withering glare from the asari. The toad had the audacity to grin back.

"Thinking about your human again?" Gallen inquired, the jolliest she had ever heard him speak.

Etherea sneered.

"She wants to peel him out of his uniform, methinks."

The voice came as a surprise, originating from right next to her ear. Etherea yelped in surprise, a first for her, drawing many stares to her workstation. Flustered with both embarrassment and anger, the asari glared at the turian woman. Tyana rounded her desk, placing a hand on the surface for support as she leaned down.

"I don't want to peel _anyone_ out of _anything_. Stop talking about it."

"Yes, you do," Tyana shot back, smirking with spread mandibles. "And we won't stop talking about it because we are your friends and it's our job to annoy you."

Etherea groaned, rubbing the skin above her brow in frustration. Why was she friends with these people?

Tyana's perky voice filled her ears once more.

"Y'know, you would make a lot more progress in bedding the guy if actually talked to him."

The asari pulled her head up, opening her mouth to speak, but the turian raised one talon to her lips, shushing her.

"And when I say, 'talk', I mean an actual conversation, not tossing him your broken crap and telling him to fix it."

Etherea glanced away in embarrassment, suddenly finding the odd stain on the wall to be very interesting. Tyana paid no mind to her friend's obvious discomfort, continuing her venture to give what she thought to be sound advice.

"Plus, he's a male! That should make your job infinitely easier! I'll bet if you just walked up to him and told him you wanted sex, he'll strip down and plant himself right on his desk."

Gallen frowned, squinting at the turian woman.

"Well, _that's_ horribly sexist."

"Pfft," Tyana snorted, waving the salarian off. "Not all the males of the galaxy are like your kind, froggy, all sexless and clinical. They actually like to use what hangs between their legs."

"…And that's horribly _racist_," Gallen replied. "How did you get hired here?"

"I'm and analyst, Gall. I analyze stuff in a sterile room for several hours a day. C-Sec doesn't need me to be good with people," Tyana chirped back.

"I didn't know C-Sec lowered their standards to such soul-crushing depths."

Tyana ignored him, taking a seat on Etherea's desk, her boney rear knocking over a lamp. The asari threw the analyst a glare which she pointedly ignored.

"Back to our original topic," The turian continued. "You can't expect anything to happen by just sitting here, daydreaming. You have got to send the guy some signals. You're an asari, Katha! So, be asari-like!"

That drew a laugh from Gallen.

"That's going to be difficult. _You're_ more of an asari than she is, Ty."

"Now look who's being racist."

Etherea was on her last nerve.

"Enough," She declared, rising from her desk. "You two are giving me a migraine. I'm going to finish my work at home. My shift's over anyway."

She scooped up her stack of datapads and started for the exit. Unfortunately for her, Tyana was swift, blocking her path before she was able to take a single step.

"Oh, no. You're not getting out of this that easily. No home for you until you talk to your human," Tyana smiled, mandibles spread wide. "I'll even go with you! That tall, dark-skinned human works close by and I've been meaning to… uh… _introduce_ myself…"

"Not you too, Ty!" Gallen groaned from his desk.

The turian woman snapped her teeth at him, cursing in her native tongue. Etherea merely gave the girl a quizzical look, one brow raised.

"What?" She asked, defensibly. "For the past few thousand years, the men of the galaxy have had your kind to ogle and drool over. When fuzzy, male-asari stumble right into my lap, you expect me _not _to do anything? For shame, you two! I thought you knew me!"

Tyana hooked her arm around Etherea's and tugged her away from her escape. For some reason, the asari couldn't find the strength to break free.

"Come on, Katha! Be brave!"

As the perky turian led her down towards the tech wing, Etherea could only feel the weight of anxiety press down on her shoulders.

_This is a horrible idea_, she thought.

**-]|[-**

_Just to clear things up:_

_Tyana is sorta-kinda based on Abby from NCIS._

_...And Etherea is sorta-kinda inspired by Brienne of Tarth from GOT._

_Yeah._


	2. Chapter 2

_Sorry for the absurdly long wait, ladies and gents! College is not only a bitch, but a bastard as well!_

Enjoy!

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**]|[**

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_Goddess… How could I be so stupid?_

Etherea sat at her desk, shoulders slumped low with eyes staring off into nothing. Planted on the surface beside her was Tyana, the turian girl looking upon her asari friend with eyes that held nothing but sympathy.

Etherea hated it.

Finally, the asari amazon's perky co-worker spoke, her once bubbly tone now simply trying to remain optimistic despite the pointedly less-than-great events that had occurred moments before.

"It's… It's not _that_ bad, Katha. He… looked like he was having fun… at the start of it, at least… and maybe even in the middle, y'know before you… I'm sure his nose his going to be fine!"

Etherea's forehead met the cold metal surface of her desk with a loud thud. A human coffee mug that she used to hold her pens tipped over, sending its contents clattering to the floor. The asari ignored the mess she made and groaned, a loud noise comprised of pure frustration that drew many eyes towards her.

"Goddess, his _nose_! As if the spectacle it turned into wasn't enough!" Etherea cried, dread spreading within her as she recalled the exact moment that the friendly "spar" she had invited Charlie to turned something horrible, painful, bloody, and embarrassing.

She had meant for it to be the initiation of courtship, the start of something that would have hopefully ended with her waking up with a fuzzy, fiery-haired human net to her. Back home, a _polite_ invitation to a sparring match was seen blatant flirtation, a chance for two people to find out if they are physically compatible as well as an ingenious way for one to make an assessment of the others'… endurance.

Had Etherea been back on Thessia, deep in the snowy mountains she called home, the invitation she had extended to the curly-haired human known as Charlie would have been looked upon with snickering and amused smiles for how painfully obvious she had been. She had stumbled over her words – _words I had practiced, goddess damn it!_ – and Charlie only gave a small smile in return, unknowingly making it worse for Etherea by somehow turning her knees into jelly. Back home, the spar would have gone on without a "hitch" as the humans say, with a fellow mountain-born. But the asari was not back home, a fact she was now viciously berating herself for forgetting. She was on the Citadel, a multicultural space station, and she was speaking to a human male, clearly not of her species. Of course things didn't work out the way she wanted!

From the start, it was perfectly clear that Charlie was not a fighter. His movements were slow and he lacked the quick reflexes that Etherea possessed. His punches had little strength behind them, unsurprising considering the fact that most the human's work required him to be at a workbench. Etherea did not mind, for it was not a fierce fighter that she wished to court and, eventually, wake up to. The amazon wanted a lover, a role Charlie had already shown much promise in.

Etherea had seen him work before, when the human was busy at his desk, fixing broken equipment – which, the asari was loathe to admit, had been damaged intentionally. From watching him, it became clear to Etherea that Charlie was rather skilled with his hands and possessed the precious trait of being attentive. Both were lovely features that she found herself fantasizing over at night.

Things seemed to be going well. Charlie appeared to not hate the spar, not particularly embarrassed by his lackluster combat skills. Etherea considered that to be a victory. Even Tyana had received a stroke of luck, for as the asari amazon scanned the crowd that was gathering around the ring, she spotted her turian friend chatting up the tall, broad human male she spoke of earlier.

It all came crashing down when Etherea threw a hard straight, expecting her human to dodge it in some way, to duck or weave. Instead, Charlie – having slow reflexes – caught her fist with his face. It only took a fraction of a second for the asari to realize what had happened, as opposed to Charlie, who probably didn't come to his senses until after he crumpled to the floor like a sack of rocks.

The crowd's reaction was one of shock, a collective gasp being drawn from some of the other recruits. A couple of turians – ones that were now on Etherea's "shit list" – had sputtered and laughed at the human's misfortune, their mandibles clicking in delighted. They were obviously overjoyed at seeing a human put in its place by a member of the "higher races".

Etherea stared blankly at the human as he struggled to his feet, obviously disoriented from the blow. On the inside, she was horrified, her mind a storm of frantic thoughts and emotions. Silently, she screamed at herself to do something other than just stare, to open her mouth and start spewing apologies, to_ fucking check if her human was okay_, but the most she could do was part her lips into a small gape when she saw deep crimson spilling from between his fingers as he clutched at his broken nose.

It was the tall, dark human that Tyana was cooing over that entered the ring and dragged Charlie off to get medical attention for his shattered nose, with the same laughing turians shouting jeers at the retreating pair. Soon enough, the crowd dispersed from around the ring, a couple of humans staying behind just long enough to throw hateful looks in her direction. Then she was alone, save for Tyana, with nothing but a dark red bloodstain on the hard mat to remind Etherea of her immense screw-up.

It was only until Tyana took her back to her desk that the asari fully realized just how ruined her chances at romance had become.

There was a snort then a laugh and suddenly Etherea was pulled from her dreadful memories.

"Nice work with the human." Spoke an obnoxious voice. The asari clenched her teeth.

_Goddess damn it, not now…_

Etherea didn't need to look up to know who it was, but she made the effort to shoot the bastard a cold glare anyway.

Bartallus was a tall, broad-shouldered turian male with dark brown plates and emerald green eyes that seemed to sparkle in the light. His elegant fringe and smooth voice combined with his skill as a C-Sec officer left him with no small amount of attention from females of many species. Etherea would even consider him handsome as far as turian men went. But even with his looks, his skill and his voice, the asari could not forgive his less-than-admirable traits.

For all that the turians spoke of honor, duty and respect, they would still fall victim to basic organic flaws such as prejudice, racism, hate, cowardice, and a sense of superiority as massive as their fleet. Bartallus had unfortunately been afflicted with every negative trait a turian could have.

…_And now he's in front of my desk, congratulating me. Fuck my life._

Tyana was the first to respond.

"You're praise is noted and unwanted. Leave, now." She snapped, her mandibles clenched tight to her face. As short as she was, Tyana was a turian as much as he was with claws as long and sharp as his.

Bartallus paid her little more than disgusted sneer. Tyana's… _preferences_ in the company she kept was no secret in the department and given the bastard's opinions on such matters… It was clear that the two would never be friends.

"I just wanted to stop by and tell you to keep up the good work. Damn humans are flooding the Citadel nowadays, too many getting jobs in C-Sec. The turians, asari, salarians, we didn't work hard for thousands of years for those monkeys to come in and act like they own the place." Bartallus gave Etherea toothy grin, his mandibles spread wide, ignoring the growling Tyana not two feet away. "They might think twice about moving in on our territory after a couple run-ins with Officer T'Naeri here."

_I hope a human fucks your wife, you egotistical, overcompensating…_

Tyana struck first, cursing Bartallus in her native tongue. Fortunately, only the other turian officers seemed to notice, their bodies perking up at the biting words spoken by the small woman. Bartallus replied in a harsh tone, which also went untranslated, then left in a hurry, talons clenched into fists as his fellow turian officers chortled at his expense.

As satisfying as that was, Etherea still could not bring herself to smile. She met Tyana's eyes.

"What did you two say?" The asari asked.

Tyana snorted, her face scrunching up in distaste.

"I insulted his virility and made a guess, which I'm assuming is accurate, about the size of his manhood. He called me a _khatratus_, which essentially means, "one who fornicates with animals". A jab at my interest in alien men, no doubt, considering he thinks it's on par with bestiality. I think I won the argument."

Etherea nodded at her turian friend, the corner of her lips twitching upwards just slightly. It was at that point that Gallen sat down in his seat across from her. The salarian, usually professional and stoic, now looked rather… mischievous.

"How's your human's nose?" He asked. Etherea groaned and buried her face in her calloused hands.

"Does _everyone_ know?" The asari grumbled, frowning into her palms.

"Yep." Was Gallen's blunt reply. "I take it Bartallus has already been through here with his whole 'humans are bad' thing?"

"Correct," Tyana said with disgust. "Why?"

"I thought so," He smiled, tossing a data chip across his desk and onto Etherea's. "That's for you."

Etherea picked it up and examined it, noticing nothing out of the ordinary. She shot the smiling salarian a confused look.

"And this is…?"

"_That_ holds the contents of Barty's work terminal. I figured that he would jump at the chance to spew his racial crap so I made a… pre-emptive strike… So to speak. I copied everything he had onto that before I ran big magnets over his computer. Fun times."

That, Etherea _did_ smile at.

_Hurrah for magnets…_

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**]|[**

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_Sorry it's so short. I'll try to get the next one up sooner, but I need to cycle through all the stories I have to update._

_Stay Awesome, KMeme!_


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